Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'up close'.
-
As the lockdown continues and I can’t go on any new adventures here’s another amazing experience from my palaeontological back catalogue. A little shorter this time than my Burgess Shale story. I was back home from university for the Christmas holiday and decided to go with my family to the Burke Museum in Seattle. I’d been many times before as a child but this time I was going to see something special the Tufts-Love rex, and I got lucky. We had arrived in the morning just before they opened and were one of the only families there, as I was peering into the lab area trying to see as much as possible, the preparator stopped, came to the door and asked if I wanted to see it up close. Next thing I knew I was face to face with the T-rex. Looking at it up close you could see the fine detail in the bone where veins ran into the maxilla and the almost feathered texture of the supraorbital ridge. She even let me touch it, something I never expected a museum to allow me to do. Of course I couldn’t pass up the photo op. In the picture the googly eye is in the wrong place, it should be up a little higher where in its place one of the preparators put a sticky not saying “no more prepping in eye hole”. Clearly the temptation to continue in further and hollow out the skull while it was still half in block was just too strong. You can also see one of the nasal bones has been exposed and has been displaced. At the time I got to see it, they weren’t sure if this meant that the other was missing or how complete the other side of the skull was. Now that the skull has been fully prepared we know (There is a fantastic thread elsewhere on the forum by @Troodon documenting its preparation). 100% of the skeletal elements are present and it’s one of the most complete skulls ever found. I haven’t seen it fully prepared yet though, since I haven’t gotten back to the Burke since it has been renovated but next time I’m back in Seattle it’s the first thing I’m going to do. Thank you all for reading, Benton
- 6 replies
-
- 15
-
- burke museum
- cretaceous
-
(and 4 more)
Tagged with:
-
I found a simple technique for getting better up close photos from an iPhone 6. I hold, with one hand, my 10x Hastings Triplex hand lens centered over the iPhone lens and the phone. See the difference (look at "ton" in Washington in these photos of a 1 $ US bill. Now, maybe we can see the pebbly texture of eggs or the grain in petrified wood. Photo without handlens: